


meltdown

by void_emissary



Category: Prey (Video Game 2017)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Blood, Drug Use, Memory Loss, Panic Attacks, Violence, a bad trip to the psychiatrist, sedatives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 15:51:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11211264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/void_emissary/pseuds/void_emissary
Summary: "You seem... frustrated."Morgan starts to slip.(mild spoilers for the game, but not the ending)





	meltdown

**Author's Note:**

> i heard the transcribe "morgan's breakdown" and couldn't stop thinking about it. (here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCsTVm4D2MU ) most of this follows the script in the transcribe, and then what my self-indulgent mind decided happens afterwards. it's technically my first fic ever? 
> 
> anyways, thank u basil for bein a Tru Pal and beta-ing this and supporting me even tho u haven't played prey!

“You seem… frustrated.”

 

Morgan didn’t want to be here—didn’t want to see Dr. Matthias Kohl’s smug, wrinkled face staring him down with easy indifference. Alex insisted on this session, insisted for the sake of Morgan’s mental stability, but being here didn’t _feel_ right. 

 

Morgan _was_ frustrated, pacing, neglecting the chair placed before the polished desk, trying to wear a hole in the white linoleum. There was a ghost, a flicker of something familiar flitting across his memory but it dissolved away like smoke, leaving a feeling of profound uncertainty and—and fear. A great emptiness threatened to consume—

 

“I have months that are just… gone! I’ve been listening to the logs, reading the research. Playing catch-up,” the panic edged into his tone and he stopped pacing, briefly, to lightly trail his fingers across a table against the wall. He exhaled, shaky, and tried to compose himself again because the last thing he needed was for the psychiatrist to see a meltdown. A cheery poster of Japan faced him, mocking, just like Kohl, just like the Rorschach spots that all looked like the typhon—

 

“Do you know how many times we’ve had this conversation?” Kohl leaned forward on his desk, his fingers pressed into each other, steepled in a caricature of patience. Morgan couldn’t turn to meet those untrustworthy eyes and he certainly didn’t want to face the truth. “This is the fifth time.”

 

Months of memory gone—maybe more—and five times previous having the same damn conversation, dealing with the same damn feelings. A sickening wrongness twisted anxiously in his gut like eels knotted together.

 

“Does it always go the same way?”

 

“Not always.” Kohl spoke coolly, too calm. 

 

“What does that mean?” 

 

“What do you think it means?” 

 

That condescending tone instantly pushed Morgan over the edge, straight into a spiral of unmitigated wrath. “I think it means you should be concerned, as my counselor!” 

 

Kohl sighed, then, patience wearing thin like his own receding hairline. He sat back, frowning, and slipped a hand into a drawer to recover a transcribe. “You left yourself a message,” he said evenly, holding the rectangular piece of technology in the air. “Would you like to listen to it?”

 

“No,” Morgan shook his head, took a step backwards. 

 

“I think it would help—“

 

“I said no,” Morgan snapped. “That’s not me!” It was a slip, the truth edging out of his consciousness. They weren’t the same person, not anymore, and the fear and anger swept through like wildfire. 

 

Kohl looked surprised, briefly, before he schooled his expression into something carefully neutral. “Why do you say that?”

 

Frustration gripped again, returning Morgan to his pacing, to him pulling at the cuff of his sleeve, eyes low and darting. “I don’t know. I just know!” 

 

“You agreed to this,” Kohl started, changing the direction of the conversation. Putting the blame on Morgan—invalidating the convoluted swarm of emotions filtering through Morgan’s head. “This was all your idea—“ He paused, a small smile creasing the corner of his lip. “You and Alex’s.” 

 

Something was shifting inside Morgan, that single thread of rationality snapping under the immense weight of everything. “I didn’t agree to any of this,” he barked, hazarding a step forward, an accusatory finger jabbed in Kohl’s direction. “Alright—Th-That _Morgan_ is not me.” He huffed, voice raising, “I would never—Do you know what’s going on in Psychotronics? Do you?” 

 

“If I did, I couldn’t say.” Kohl sighed again like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He was holding back—the bastard _knew_. “You know that.”

 

A snake—this man was a snake—and Morgan hated him. He felt a spike of adrenaline, the sudden mental image of Kohl’s head beaten in with bare fists—of bloodied knuckles dripping, soiling the pristine, white linoleum of the office. It would be worth it to murder the man, to be sent back to earth to stand trial—if they didn’t kill him first. Jettison his body into space for an easy, cheap clean up. The darkness would be waiting there— _that darkness_ , the one from the dreams that plagued him.

 

“What do you know about the Typhon?” His voice was shaking, barely holding together anymore.

 

“Eh, we shouldn’t talk about them. Not without your brother present.” 

 

Morgan’s eyes narrowed, focus pinpointed on _them_ , bringing him a step closer to Kohl’s desk. “ _Them_. You do know, you snake. How can you sit there?” His voice was raising again, fingers trembling, anxiety worsening. His lungs were suddenly burning, hard to breathe, heart pounding so ferociously against his ribcage he thought it might break free. Panic, he was panicking—and angry, and every other emotion that had been bottled up for hours, days, _months_. Hidden beneath the memory loss. Beneath the void.

 

“Morgan,” Kohl’s voice was impassive, maybe a little condemning like a father scolding a child throwing a tantrum. Again, he slipped his hand into his desk, the tell-tale clattering of pills filling the brief silence between them. “Take a deep breath. Here,” softer, less patronizing and more pitying. He held out the bottle in his wrinkled hand.

 

“I don’t want a pill,” he seethed. “I want this station shut down! I want Earth—“   


 

“ _Morgan,_ ” Kohl was impatient, annoyed, eyebrows lowering and mouth falling into a tight line.

 

“I said no!” Morgan yelled, breathing hard, shaking. Inside was a maelstrom, swirling, nauseating, overbearing, thunder loud in his ears, loud in his chest. Too much—and the anger was worse of all. Venom seething, pulsing, a living thing coiled around his heart, hot barbs twisting into his ribs, his stomach—

 

“Okay,” Kohl sighed, fingers moving to his transcribe. “I’m gonna call Alex.” He stopped the recording, flitted over to the first name on his contacts and hit dial. 

 

Kohl’s voice muffled into a dull murmur beneath the pounding against Morgan’s ears, against the rasping that he recognized as his own labored gasps. He couldn’t focus, couldn’t breathe—and the unrelenting panic that there was something very wrong going on, that he was powerless to stop it, consumed him. A black abyss filled his heart, nested there, the darkness staring back at him from the depths of space.

 

If he closed his eyes he could see it. Something out there alive, hungry, _angry_ —like him. 

 

He was having a panic attack, Morgan realized belatedly, clinically, the scientist side of his brain trying to rationalize him through the whole ordeal. Somehow it made it all worse because this mind wasn’t _that_ Morgan, the Morgan that agreed to all this. 

 

His eye throbbed, a phantom pain pulsing where the needles slid in. Months missing. He would have never agreed to this—they’re _lying._ He’s not that Morgan, can’t they see? He whined, pitiful, hands gripping his head like it might explode.

 

“-gan,” a familiar voice, low and gentle. “Morgan.”

 

Morgan’s eyes snapped up to the sight of Alex’s round face, his smart caring eyes. His brother, the only person he was supposed to trust, looking at him with worry creased between his brows.

 

He should have felt calmer but the pounding in his chest continued and the swirling in his head threatened to spill his guts out onto the floor. Alex moved forward with a hand outstretched like he might try and console his brother, with the reluctance like he was afraid Morgan might make a run for it.

 

But Morgan jerked away, hip smashing into the chair he never sat in, sending it crashing into the floor in a deafening clatter. 

 

“Don’t touch me,” he hissed. Alex looked hurt but Morgan couldn’t bring himself to care when all he could see was the pain that kept being inflicted, the gaping abscess of the memories stripped from his grey matter with every neuromod removal. 

 

“Breathe,” Kohl said, stepping around his desk and giving the disgruntled man a wide girth. Morgan’s eyes shifted to the psychiatrist’s hands and to where something carefully hidden glistened briefly under the dim lights. A feeling of déjà vu-- “You need to calm down.”

 

“Don’t—Don’t you tell me to calm down! I don’t want this, I never agreed to this!” He backed away from Alex and Kohl, towards the poster that mocked him from behind. “I’m through. I’ve had enough.”

 

“You know that’s not how this works,” Alex sighed. There was no malice in his words, only a quiet truth. “Think of all the good we’re doing. The advancement of the human race—“

 

“Can you really say that? After everything that’s happened?” His voice was fragile even to his own ears and he hated it. “Psychotronics—“

 

Kohl had moved closer, moving closer still inches at a time, even though Morgan thought he was making it clear he wanted his space.

 

“Stay away from me!”

 

“Morgan, please. Be reasonable,” Alex held his hands out in the epitome of calm. Nothing betrayed the genuine look of concern plastered on the man’s face except for the niggling feeling that this _wasn’t right_ either. It was a lie.

 

But his eyes had been on Alex for too long and Kohl saw it as an opportunity to step closer still. That’s when he saw it, first a glistening glimpse, yet now it was so obviously there--a needle, a syringe, filled with a clear liquid, held carefully between Kohl’s fingers.

 

Before his mind could provide enough cause to hesitate, he flung himself at the doctor and knocked the man to the ground. The syringe careened through the air and landed somewhere over where the carpet met the linoleum. He was suddenly straddled above the older man in the perfect image of his previous fantasy--and god it felt _good_. He felt in control--maybe for the first time in months.

 

His fist hit flesh hard enough to rattle teeth and then again--

 

A smile crept across his lips, parting, breaths hissing through clenched teeth--

 

The snake deserved it--the whole of Talos 1 deserved it--

 

Then Alex was on him, all of the man’s weight pulling at his arms in an attempt to control him, corral him like a wild animal. Maybe he was an animal, maybe this was the new Morgan that the others didn’t seem to want to grasp. 

 

He hadn’t noticed it at first, the sting, until the world began to slow. 

 

Alex squeezed the last of the syringe into the exposed skin of Morgan’s neck, then slid the needle out and tossed it across the floor. As Morgan started to go slack, Alex slid his hands under his brother’s arms and pulled him from the prone form of Dr. Kohl.

 

“Are you alright,” Alex asked in more of a courtesy than of actual care. His gaze fell down to his brother sprawled on the floor and in his lap, writhing sluggishly, face twisted in confusion and the last remnants of anger. 

 

“Heh,” Kohl pulled himself to his feet, using his desk as leverage. Blood flowed freely down his nose, his cracked lip, and a smile revealed a chipped tooth. He spat a bloody mass onto the white floor. “I don’t think I need to tell you this, but he isn’t stable.”

 

“Noted,” Alex deadpanned. “Help me get him up.”

 

Morgan felt the room shift around him, felt hands on him briefly, setting him into a chair where his head lulled to the side. He fought against the sedative, against the numbness, the sudden intense desire to just lie down and sleep forever. The knowledge that they only had worse planned from here--that he’d wake up with no memory of this and he’d go to another appointment in this very office without knowing what transpired here before--that _scared him_.

 

Six times. He would be told on his next visit that their conversation was one in six. Kohl would have no indication of his injuries, Alex would be on stand-by, and that Morgan would be afraid, anxious, just like this Morgan. Maybe the next one would be more cunning about this. Pretend everything was well and play along until he devised a plan to stop the experiments--to escape, maybe. 

 

His head rolled as he struggled to stay awake and coherent, knowing that it wouldn’t be long now until the fight left him. Body slouching, sliding, he sighed in bittersweet surrender. Their voices seemed so far away--his eyelids drooped, vision narrowing into a pinprick of light--of Dr. Matthias Kohl’s desk. A wisp of tangible darkness, and two identical coffee cups sitting side-by-side. 

 

Finally Morgan succumbed to the lull of sleep, leaving behind the anxiety, fear, and anger for the Morgan of tomorrow to deal with. 

 

When he closed his eyes, he was met with the sentient darkness of space--ever watchful and ever consuming.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on twitter @void_emissary and tumblr @void-emissary !


End file.
